Healing and educating in Akwesasne

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A sombre, yet vibrant, travelling exhibit and memorial has opened in Akwesasne and will be there most of the month.

Walking With Our Sisters is a large, commemorative art installation for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people which consists of beaded vamps submitted from countless indigenous nations across Turtle Island (North America).

A ceremonial lodge was built at the Kawehnoke Recreation Center in Akwesasne to house the vamps, and it's creating healing and awareness as well as prevention.

The 12 women who have been lost within the Akwesasne community over the years were honoured at Friday's opening ceremonies. There was a private ceremony for family members in the morning, and a public ceremony in the afternoon.

"It's a really amazing way for us to honour (victims)," said Sarah Rourke, one of the co-leaders of the Walking With Our Sisters Akwesasne committee.

"(The issue involves violence and sadness) but instead this is something that is beautiful, and it can lead to dialogue and prevention."

Vamps are the unfinished beaded tops of moccasins that represent the women's unfinished journeys.

The bundle also has youth and children's vamps representing the losses during residential schools, and the memorial consists of over 1,726 pairs of moccasin tops, and close to 200 children's vamps.

Walking With Our Sisters began three years ago and will continue for another four years, the seven years representing a generation.

The art installation is in Akwesasne until Nov. 27. It's scheduled to be on tour to 25 locations and is booking into 2018. The installation was last at Carleton University in Ottawa, and it's in the region again in 2017 at Kahnawake, just south of Montreal.

More than 1,180 native women and girls in Canada have been reported missing or have been murdered in the past 30 years, many vanishing without a trace with inadequate inquiry into their disappearances or murders by the media, general public, politicians and even law enforcement, say art installation organizers.

At the exhibit, the vamps are arranged like sisters facing into a lodge. It was a vision created by Christi Belcourt and Maria Campbell in western Canada to create a grandmothers' lodge. Communities which host the bundle have added ceremonial items, including a buffalo skull and eagle staffs.

The project is solely supported by volunteers -- thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous people across North America who care deeply about the issue.

Rourke expects many people from inside the Akwesasne community and outside of it to visit the installation.

"I absolutely hope so," she said. "It's bringing that healing we need in the community . . . it's education and prevention through traditional knowledge, and it gets a dialogue going on."

Rourke noted it can mean more cultural awareness for those from outside the Akwesasne community, and she said several schools in Cornwall have visits coming up.

"Tours can still be booked," she said.

The Walking With Our Sisters Akwesasne committee is co-led by Rourke, Alicia Cook and Dyan Swamp, and joined by elders, keepers and over 50 other volunteers.

"We've had volunteers here on a consistent basis all week, and meetings for over a year," Rourke said.

There are open hours from Nov. 7 (this Saturday) to Nov. 27, and the memorial can be visited from Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday from noon until 4 p.m. The memorial is closed on Mondays.

The Kawehnoke Community Center is located at the Island Recreation Building, at 10 Community Center Road in Akwesasne, Ontario.

For more information on the beginning of the installation, www.walkingwithoursisters.com.